PETER MCWILLIAMS: I think they’re hoping people are going to fork out $2,500 for a computer for their home. And I can’t see it.

ADAMS: What do you get for the $2,500 now?

MCWILLIAMS: What you get is a screen, a nine-inch screen. You get a keyboard. You get 128K of RAM, which is internal disk storage. And you get a 3-1/2-inch disk drive.

ADAMS: Let me translate a bit here or try to translate. You’re saying it has a very good memory. It has a 3-1/2-inch disk drive, which is not compatible with other computers. What’s the standard size, then?

MCWILLIAMS: The standard is five-and-a-quarter inch. And they have made a corporate decision that the 3-1/2-inch drive is going to make it. I don’t see it myself. But this whole computer is a calculated risk on Apple’s part. If the world is ready to accept a brand-new standard, this machine will make it. If it’s not, the machine won’t make it.

And it will have certain specialized applications like in architectural firms and so forth. But on the whole, it’s gambling that the world is ready to accept a new standard. My personal point of view is that the world is not.

BLOCK: That’s the late author Peter McWilliams, talking with our former host Noah Adams 30 years ago tomorrow, January 25th, 1984. They were talking about Apple’s Macintosh computer, which had just been introduced.